This entertaining survivalist drama in a wilderness of malignant hillbillies is burdened with a few question marks. The biggest being, Are these hunters really friends? They bicker and mock- threaten like junior-high kids on a school-bus. Once ambushed by hicks, the adult behavior which follows is equally hard to believe.
Second, the movie's bizarre philosophical subtext embraces both nihilism and mass-suicide (after multiple homicides), and this supports some theory that people are evil in general and not kind enough to each other. So, this justifies killing people in the name of evil, which the movie summarizes at the end as juvenile delinquent forms of misbehavior--like tripping people in parks? I don't get it.
Nonetheless, the movie's many surprises include an amazing truck chase plus other moments of gritty, violent suspense. The Aaron Stielstra soundtrack is a boost to all the action, with its many synth/orchestral and hillbilly instruments complementing the atmosphere. The photography is also excellent--especially during the knockout chase and forest scenes and night exteriors. So are the special effects. Too bad the movie opens with distracting blown out exteriors where a lot of actors' brows are rendered eyeless and Neanderthal.
The sense of isolation is broken by a confusing mid-section where some female barflies visit, then vanish from the scene. This nearness of civilization depletes the movie of what could be a more menacing environment. Especially as the hillbillies, though rather confusingly characterized, are well-acted and freakish enough to warrant locking your doors.
Mostly good performances help keep the absurdity at bay, with Michael Fredianelli giving a believable, subdued performance as the one hunter who seems genuinely unsettled by all the mayhem. Excellent and extremely risky stunt work and dummy crushings provide even more punch. On an atrocity level, the movie delivers.
Without the intrusive and exposition-heavy finale--complete with a lengthy monologue which seems lifted out of another movie entirely-- the movie could dispose of its bloated philosophizing. The terrifying themes about inhumanity and civilization versus hillbillies qualify for a lot less incoherent exploration, even after the genius of "The Hills Have Eyes", "Deliverance", "Shoot", "Hunter's Blood", and the fantastic Richard Matheson novel, "Hunted Past Reason".
Still, Fredianelli's movie supplies great action and interesting new ideas. If only the climactic summary of all the on screen death wasn't weighted down with such a bludgeoning approach.
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